Cropping seasons: kharif, rabi and zaid

Detail

What a cropping season is

• A cropping season is the part of the year when a set of crops is sown, grown and harvested.
• In India, the seasons follow two weather patterns:
• the south-west monsoon (June to September), which brings the summer rain

• the cool, dry winter (October to March), which gets some rain in the north-west.

• India has three main cropping seasons:

• Kharif: the monsoon or rainy-season crop
• Rabi: the winter crop
• Zaid: a short summer crop grown between rabi and kharif.

The three seasons at a glance

Season	Timing	Main crops: North India	Main crops: South India	Main water source
Kharif	June to September. Sown when the monsoon starts and harvested in September-October	Rice, cotton, bajra, maize, jowar, tur. Also moong, urad, jute, soybean, groundnut	Rice, maize, ragi, jowar, groundnut	South-west monsoon rain
Rabi	October-November to March-April	Wheat, barley, peas, gram, rapeseed and mustard	Rice, maize, ragi, groundnut, jowar	Winter rain from western disturbances, plus irrigation
Zaid	April to June, after the rabi harvest	Watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables, fodder	Rice, vegetables, fodder	Mostly irrigation

• Exam trap: the two NCERT books give different rabi dates.
• Class 12 says rabi runs from October-November to March-April.
• Class 10 says rabi is sown from October to December and harvested from April to June.
• Both are accepted. The Class 10 dates are wider because they include late sowing and late harvests.

Kharif: the monsoon crop

• Kharif crop: a crop sown when the south-west monsoon starts (June-July) and harvested in September-October.

• These crops need high heat, high humidity and a lot of water.

• How the monsoon drives kharif:

• In summer, land heats up faster than the sea. This creates low pressure over north-west India.
• The low pressure pulls in moist south-west winds from the Indian Ocean.

• These winds bring monsoon rain from June to September. Rice, cotton and millets grow in this wet, warm period.

• North India's kharif crops: rice, cotton, bajra, maize, jowar and tur (arhar). Also moong, urad, jute, soybean and groundnut.

• South India's kharif crops: rice, maize, ragi, jowar and groundnut.

Kharif rice belts

• Traditional rain-fed rice areas:
• Assam and West Bengal
• coastal Odisha
• Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
• Tamil Nadu and Kerala
• the Konkan coast (Maharashtra and Goa)

• Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

• New irrigated rice areas: Punjab and Haryana. Rice spread here with canal and tubewell irrigation after the Green Revolution of the 1960s, even though these states get little rain.

• Three paddy crops a year: aus, aman and boro. Assam, West Bengal and Odisha grow all three.
• Aus: the autumn crop
• Aman: the winter crop. It is the main crop, sown in the monsoon.
• Boro: the spring or summer crop, grown with irrigation.
• In these states rice is grown across all three seasons, not only in kharif.

Current kharif output

• Kharif foodgrains in 2024-25: an estimated 1663.91 LMT (lakh metric tonnes; 10 LMT = 1 million tonnes) (Second Advance Estimates) [2].
• Kharif rice in 2024-25: an estimated 1206.79 LMT, a record. This was 74.20 LMT more than the 1132.59 LMT of 2023-24 [2].
• Kharif 2025-26 (First Advance Estimates):
• kharif foodgrains: 173.33 million tonnes, up 3.87 million tonnes [4]
• kharif rice: 124.504 million tonnes [4]
• kharif maize: 28.303 million tonnes, up 3.495 million tonnes [4]
• kharif coarse cereals: 41.414 million tonnes [4]
• kharif pulses: 7.413 million tonnes [4].

Risks to kharif

• Late monsoon: sowing gets delayed, so the crop has less time to grow.
• Too much rain or floods: standing crops are destroyed.
• Breaks in the monsoon: a dry spell in the middle of the season damages rain-fed crops.
• Kharif is the season that depends most on the weather.

Rabi: the winter crop

• Rabi crop: a crop sown in winter (October-December) and harvested in spring or early summer (March-June).

• It uses the low winter temperatures to grow temperate crops (crops of cooler regions, e.g. wheat, barley) and subtropical crops (e.g. gram, mustard).

• North India's rabi crops: wheat, barley, peas, gram, rapeseed and mustard.

• South India's rabi crops: rice, maize, ragi, groundnut and jowar. The south has no cold winter, so tropical crops grow here in rabi too.
• Rabi rice in 2024-25: an estimated 157.58 LMT [2].

Why rabi succeeds (1): western disturbances

• Western disturbances (Class 10 calls them western temperate cyclones): low-pressure storm systems that start outside the tropics. They bring winter rain and snow to north-west India.
• How they form and travel:
• They start as cyclones over the Mediterranean Sea [6].
• They move east across Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and enter north-west India [6].

• They bring short spells of winter rain to the plains and snow to the hills.

• How much they matter:

• About 30% of the yearly rain and snow over north-west India falls in winter, mostly from western disturbances. This covers Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand [6].
• This rain is very important for rabi crops in north-west India, especially wheat [6].

Why rabi succeeds (2): Green Revolution irrigation

• Green Revolution (from the mid-1960s): a programme of high-yielding seeds, chemical fertilisers and assured irrigation.
• It turned Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan into the main wheat belt.
• How it worked:
• Canals and tubewells supplied water through the dry winter.

• High-yielding wheat could now be grown on a large scale, no longer depending only on winter rain.

• Wheat output today:

• 2024-25 (Second Advance Estimates): 1154.30 LMT, a record. This was 21.38 LMT more than 2023-24 [2].

• 2024-25 (Third Advance Estimates): 1175.07 LMT [3].

• Rabi foodgrains in 2024-25: an estimated 1645.27 LMT. This is almost the same as kharif (1663.91 LMT), so the two seasons now produce about equal amounts of foodgrain [2].

Zaid: the short summer season

• Zaid crop: a short-duration crop grown from April to June, between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing.

• It is grown mostly on irrigated land, because the summer is hot and dry.

• North India's zaid crops: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops.

• South India's zaid crops: rice, vegetables and fodder.
• Recent area under summer crops:
• Summer rice: final area in 2025 was 33.28 lakh hectares. The normal area is 31.49 lakh hectares [5].

• Summer pulses: final area in 2025 was 27.07 lakh hectares. The normal area is 23.40 lakh hectares [5].

• Sugarcane does not fit any one season. It takes almost a year to grow, so it occupies the field across seasons.

Why the south is different

• Three clear seasons exist only in the north and in the interior.

• The cold northern winter forces a change of crops: rice in kharif, wheat in rabi.

• In the south, it is warm all year.

• Tropical crops can grow in any season if the soil has enough moisture.

• So the same crop (for example rice) can be grown three times a year.

• This is why the south's kharif and rabi crop lists look almost the same.

Where the names come from

• Kharif, rabi and zaid are Arabic words. They have been used in India since Mughal times.
• Older Indian names:

Older Indian name	Meaning	Matching season today
Kedara	Wet crops	Kharif
Haimana	Winter crops	Rabi
Graishmika	Summer crops	Zaid

• This shows that Indian farmers had a seasonal crop calendar long before the Arabic names came into use.

Prelims Hooks

• Kharif is sown when the monsoon starts and harvested in September-October. Rabi is sown in October-December. Zaid grows from April to June, mostly with irrigation.
• Rabi crops: wheat, barley, peas, gram, mustard. Kharif crops: rice, cotton, bajra, maize, jowar, tur, moong, urad, jute, soybean, groundnut. Zaid crops: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, fodder.
• Aus, aman and boro are three rice crops grown in Assam, West Bengal and Odisha. They are not three kinds of wheat.
• Western disturbances start as cyclones over the Mediterranean Sea. They bring about 30% of north-west India's yearly rain and snow in winter, which helps rabi wheat [6].
• Trap 1: rice is a kharif crop in the north. In the south, rice is also grown in rabi and zaid.
• Trap 2: sugarcane belongs to no single season. It takes about a year to grow.
• Name pairs: kedara = wet crops (kharif); haimana = winter crops (rabi); graishmika = summer crops (zaid). Kharif, rabi and zaid are Arabic words, used since Mughal times.
• Rabi depends on irrigation: the Green Revolution wheat belt is Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan.
• Record output in 2024-25 (Third Advance Estimates): foodgrains 3539.59 LMT, rice 1490.74 LMT, wheat 1175.07 LMT [3].

Mains Points

• Kharif depends on the monsoon (GS-I/III):
• A late, weak or broken monsoon cuts rain-fed kharif output in eastern and central India.
• Too much rain and floods destroy standing paddy.

• Responses: more irrigation, crops that tolerate drought or flooding, and crop insurance.

• Rabi depends on irrigation (GS-III):

• Green Revolution wheat in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh made rabi grain output about equal to kharif (2024-25: rabi 1645.27 LMT vs kharif 1663.91 LMT) [2].

• The cost is heavy use of groundwater. Growing rice in Punjab and Haryana, which get little rain, also locks farmers into the rice-wheat cycle.

• North and south follow different patterns (GS-I):

• The north's cold winter creates three separate seasons.
• The south's warm climate allows the same crop to be grown up to three times a year.

• Eastern India grows three rice crops a year (aus, aman, boro). This shows how climate shapes the cropping calendar.

• Zaid as a way to grow more (GS-III):

• Summer crops grown with irrigation (summer pulses reached 27.07 lakh hectares in 2025) use land that would otherwise lie empty between seasons [5].
• This helps grow more pulses and fodder, but it depends on having water in the dry season.